I am loud,
Demanding attention.
I know when I am being charming
Because I try.
I put on my impressing face
And do my impressing hair
And speak my impressing words.
I tell you my embarrassing drinking stories
And everything else about me
That you probably shouldn’t know.

I am not good at being quiet
Because that’s not who I am.
I am not the sweet girl
Who will leave you with a smile
And a touch
And a glance
Or a single word.
There is nothing of this fashion of romance
About me.

I am the girl who will point out your flaws,
And take you outside to see the stars,
And remind you how human you are,
And what a wonderful thing that is.

I am the girl who will talk about science,
And music and theology and history,
And point out constellations, laughing,
When you don’t know the big dipper’s name.

I am the girl who will make witty references,
To classic literature and science fiction,
And will tell you stories of how I once,
Made a gingerbread replica of a lighthouse.

I am the girl who will stand on a table,
And sing at the top of my lungs on the highway,
And act like a chicken or quail or velociraptor,
Or nuzzle your face like a lion to make a point.

I am the girl who takes too many shots
And then coaxes you to bed on a Russian liver,
And knows all the right places to bite, and tease,
And follows with exceptionally coherent pillow-talk.

I am not a thin silk scarf on the wind.
I am not a thing hard to capture.
You would not spend a perilous journey
Through a wild, perfumed jungle,
Searching for my slender garments
Hung beside a pool
As I wail to the breeze.

Rather, I am the bird who flies overhead
Making too much noise
Distracting from the trail ahead.
A bird whose plumage proves
What an interesting life it must be…
What a colorful life for me…
Perpetually strange
The lone comic relief.

I am many things.
But I am not quiet.
Of this I am sure.

Too long this rot has run its course, too much the damage done
When men deflect acknowledged glance, they know that wrong has won.
Across this land and far afield the wrongness seeps within
And pride becomes a memory through distant halls of spin.
How can we bow to tyranny, how can we shy away
From that which causes  eyes to slide.... and coaxes will to sway?
To tolerate the bombast, the bullying, the lies
Succumbing to a hopelessness, which, both we despise.
Division in the nation, uproar in between
A man and wife’s contention-ness beyond what should be seen
Brothers loathing brothers, silence in the room
Where a word  uttered wrongly can erupt to screaming soon.
Allies left in tatters, trust is cut to shards
Tariffs injudiciously, imposed to **** the cards.
International uproar, industry in strife
Teetering disastrously when NATO flees the knife.

Putin sits and rubs his hands, hilarious the show
Disorder and disharmony to lubricate his glow.
Beijing sits inscrutably, always opportune
Manoeuvring judiciously, in place, to call the tune.

America, the isolate, sails away to sea
Blondini, at the helm, wears smirk indulgently.

M.
The White House
HAMILTON NZ
12th July 2018

She moves him ‘round the chess board,
dodging bishops, pawns and rooks.
She coaxes him from square to square
without a second look.

The white knight cannot catch him.
Piece by piece, the foe now yields.
Her king is safe; the game is done.
The queen controls the field.

My lover introduced me to a girl named Ana today.
She is an emancipated horror who I am scared to know.

My lover told me he introduced all his exes to Ana, Ana will help our relationship grow
I ask if he thinks I'm fat
All he says is to get to know ana and Things will be better.

I shake hands with Ana and her voice Is intoxicating but I refuse to become addicted
She promises to let me be, only see me when I truly need.
Little did I know her fingers were crossed.

My loved coaxes me to meet with Ana more often
Run with her before school and sit with her at lunch
I hope she joins me for dinner tonight.

My lover praises me and tells me I'm becoming beautiful
But I wonder
Is he praising me or Ana
She's the beautiful one
And I am still fat

My lover tells me Ana made the *** better
As I screamed his name over and over again
In attempts to forget mine
And he loves that I no longer want the lights on when we do the deed
Praying the dark will hide the layers of chub clinging beneath my skin

My lover expects Ana to be with us at all times
I get angry at her and push her away breaking all her rules
And feeling guilty
I hope she'll take me back I learned my lesson
I crawl back to Ana

My lover introduces me to Mia
Says she'll be there for me when Ana fails me
Mia has scars on her knuckles and thin hair
But she promises what Ana denied me
And I gladly wrap my arms around her

My lover tells me ana and Mia are the only friends I'll ever need
I have to agree
My others have left me
My true friends tell me
It was because I was skinnier than them
But now I'm the fattest friend again

My lover is proud of Ana Mia and I
Tells me they've made me perfect
I can finally stop meeting them
I agree
And later that night the three of us rendezvous in the bathroom
To test the scale
And my gag reflex

My lover is angry at me
I've betrayed him with my meetings
He tells me if I don't leave them he'll leave me
Is tired of waking up to find me with my head passed out on the toilet seat

My lover is no longer mine
Left me for a curvy girl
Well that's fine with me
My only true loves are Ana and Mia
And I know they'll never leave me.

My new lovers make me pretty
And tell me I'll soon be perfect like them
I feel beautiful every time I lose the weight
But they make me feel useless when I don't follow their commands

My lovers tell me not to talk to a boy
Explain I'm not thin enough yet
Tell me to **** in my stomach when he looks at me
But I sense no judgement in his eyes
I tell them this is what they've prepared me for
And they scream that I'm not ready and he'll take them away from me
I'm scared to lose them
But I still meet him when I've managed to keep them at bay with leaf

My lovers are suffocating me
Shoving their fingers down my throat and slamming my wrist to the table when I pick up a fork
I'm scared they'll never let me be
Their eyes are hallow
And I can't find their compassion

My lovers are no longer beautiful
I see them as they are
Emancipated lifeless things
Praying for me to join them
They hold out their skeletal hands
Begging me to take them
Their lips are blue and voice raspy
And I want nothing more to run away but I'm stuck in place

I've left my lovers
They're still screaming
Clinging to my back with surprising weight
Hair falling out onto me
Whispering sweet nothings
Then screaming when I don't so as they say

My lover
Is a boy who sees me without fear
Does not scare away when he sees the girls clinging to me
Or the way my ribs jut out when I don't eat for a day
And I trust him every time he tells me
I'm beautiful
Even though the girls are whispering in ashen voices
***** I make you beautiful
Please come back and I'll make you drop dead gorgeous.
But I don't want to be gorgeous if it means being six feet under.

My old lovers are shrinking
Voices drying up every time I sip cream filled coffee
Arms weakening every time I lift the bite of cake to my lips.
They are dying with every meal I eat
Their voices getting quieter the longer I go without listening.
I only hope one day they do die
So that way I don't.

One lover introduced me to a horrendous disease. I'm not going to call them Ana and Mia anymore Because naming them is just a sad way of trying to control them
As if by personifying them We make them less dangerous Like a game or child's story. But this is a disease that killed thousands and almost killed me. One in five girls with an eating disorder die. I was one of the lucky few Don't be the one. Get help.If I can defeat this You can obliterate it. It won't be easy But it'll be more than worth it. Throw away the scale Burn the tape measurer You are more than a number You are beautiful. Don't let anyone tell you different. not a lover Or society Or yourself. Love yourself And others will follow suit. And in case you need to hear it I love you. Beat this I'll be here, Never be afraid to ask for strength. I don't have much But I'll give you all of it. If only to see you wake up in your bed instead of on the floor of the bathroom Stuck to the tile by sweat. To weak to sit up To tired to breath no matter who you are or what you've done No matter your lowest or highest weight Or how many ribs I can see No matter if I even know your name I love you. And if you ever need it I'll be here Just a message away And I promise I will give you all the strength I have just to help you get through a meal. Even if what you need is someone to sit and hold your hand and encourage you to take every bite or someone to tell you that you are beautiful when you can't bring yourself to fully believe it.
So please help yourself and Don't listen to others say "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" because so many things do.
Fresh donuts with coffee on days you don't want to face the light of morning
Pizza with friends while playing ****** video games and watching even ******* rom coms
Thanksgiving turkey
Christmas ham
Hot cocoa with a lover who sees stars in your eyes
But most of all
Life.
Life tastes better than any number.

Poetry Round (find your self within)

We sit together in spirit, if not in body,
You join me in the Poet's Nook,
A few frayed and weathered Adirondack chairs
Overlooking the Peconic Bay,
Where inspiration glazes over the water,
And we drown happily in a sea of words,
Commencing:

You say unto me, whitecaps, I reply,

"Solitary swimmers, poets, arms crooked over head, in the sea of us"

I say flooded with gratitude, and Stephanie replies,

"Thou art my carved destiny-and the river that permits my blood to flood...And all this noise shall fall into poetry; Which every day grows statelier and comelier.

You say to us Moonlight, and we laugh, delighted, for she has given us

"This love can be ours,
Under the iridescent moonlight
Embraced within one another,
To live for an eternity,
Languid and soft"

Someone calls out Bala,
And Vicarpio Gale favors us with his words,

"a poetic rain, in small print, fills the white sky page"

And we pray nightly, that come next morn, he will rain upon us once again

We pretend it is night and there are
Stars to Touch,  but this poet of pax corrects us and writes, t'is but,

"late afternoon sun slanting
behold, jaune compassion
alfalfa ocherous leans willowy in wind
distance of silence yearns on
afternoon shadows lie within majestic vales"

Who is it that calls out
Have Mercie  B.e  upon us,
for she reminds us of what we B.e tasked individually,

"Provoking ideas and intoxicating imagery overflow from within and yet somehow you can't see.  There are dreams that run wild inside of this heart and there is no way I'll let them be tamed"

Sunshineflowers every where,
But even more beautiful when she coaxes us to laugh
at ourselves
when writing of true love,

"Why don't i have bananas, said the monkey.
The tiger said, because you are my soulmate"

Did you C Holmes reminding us that

"when you're certain you've
painted the next Van Gogh
with the swirls and gusts
of blues so pure,
any mortal would
stop stare & lose track of time?"

Fyi, Fyi,

"Her callous persecution insinuates,
The elusive flaws of humanity and life,
It implicitly elucidates,
The sombre reality"

About certain Angels  was writ, that both in heaven and on earth, she was garbed, for

"She wore an air of mysticism
Her memory bore prophetic visions
From ancient egyptian
And judaic traditions
She knows every star system
And every night is a mission
Where she wishes and wishes
For help from the legends"

Emily  has met an unwanted friend, familiar to all of us,

"Cemented shoes
And silenced talk
It's even hard to describe
Writer's block"

Sara B.  from B'kara, that's in Malta, gives advice most sensible,

"Times they are a changing
make everybody feel blue
just turn up the music
and forget what you're supposed to do"

Victor  claims not to be a

"poet, a musician even less
but I may be kind of a beggar
when I beg of you
don't forget me
or let your music fade out
of my rainy days"

Dare I disagree? **** right I do!

Little RedWritingHood,  from my city hails, so wise, far beyond her years, reveals that,

"people try to
make me see reason
or their definition of it
but reason is relative
as is too much in this world"

Should I go on? Why not!

Something's are ForeverMarvelous,  like

"Hurt is fading
Fists are pumping
Bass is trembling
Some are hating-
But I keep dancing"

mybarefootdrives  me forward because

"every seed of thought
starts itself out like a whisper.
Until weight behind words
allows them to stand on their own merit"

Maria GH  could be an old friend, who

"draws me near,
it's slender form bleeding into
the background.
Slowly, kindly,
it extends a hand and
I take it
as to forever hold comfort
in mine"

Andy from Mombasa, your poetry

"conspires to purge me of my sense of reasoning
Leaving me bare to suffer the perils of an incongruous world"
And I am a better poet for it...

Brendan'  I've watched your words,

"Crack the veil of tired souls
cloaked in lonely sorrows,
broken by faithless wanderings,
and feel the strings course through your veins"

I am blindsided and Blastsided  when I read

"Onomatopoeia
I love words
for their meanings
their woven tapestries
but also
for their taste"
For I know exactly what you mean

I am exhausted. So many gems to decorate
My body, my soul. I must stop here,
So many of you have reached out, none of you overlooked.

Overwhelmed, let us sit together now
And celebrate the silence that comes after the
Gasp, the sigh, that the words have taken from
Our selves, from within.

Once again, in your debt.

Standing in the August sun,
Your skin soaks up the light,
And saves it for November,
When clouds occlude the sky.

The gentle breeze softly coaxes
The folds of your paisley dress,
To gather up their courage
And ask your hair to dance.

Silent finches straining to hear,
Her soaring, piccolo laugh.
The waves cresting to see,
Her pure and radiant smile.

Like stars that come to speckle
The navy nighttime sky,
Each morning a brand new freckle
Appears below your eye.

Adorned with grace and charm,
With patience and joy complete,
Dare not to look away,
None other can compete.

Grumbling fingers,
Untying scarlet ribbons,
White banners to unfurl,
And forfeit to the beauty,
Of my gorgeous summer girl.

I.  Father
A folded spiral delicately assembled, nestled in modernity feigning a place in nature. Round and round her made and found ingredients turn, creating a circle whose beginning and ending sit so close that they almost touch. Her circle extends far beyond the nest she is building, extends without shifting into her mother’s laden cycle. Bird, earth, man; at the extremities of their existences they are separated no longer. The old man’s limbs sit heavy, their frailty relieving them of the weight of gravity that had, in their youth, banished the wind. Quietly he sways, lost in the rhythm of terrestrial orbit that seems to beat louder with each passing day. I see the thoughts move about his stoic face, like midwinter ice-skaters whose tracks become his wrinkles and whose unraveled scarves are caught in the same current that graces his cheeks like a kiss. I think he must have found the answer for which I am still seeking the question. I think he must know that the feathered ***** of native energy that speed like backyard bottle rockets through the air and pull worms like loose threads from the fabric of our mother’s coat will see morning’s glory blossom, and drink of its sweet nectar, and that he will become those flowers and breathe their roots up from  humid soil. I do not know where he goes when his eyes close like the wooden shutters that will soon be taken from the old brick house’s covered windows to close over a more somber cradle. I know when I mimic his tacit gesture I am in the singing robin’s nest at which he so tranquilly gazes, crying to the universe from the raw cords in my fragile neck for nourishment, for some magical substance, some divinely instructive stardust that would explain to me why the leaves shake just so and why, when our brilliant star hides his smoldering stare behind curved lids, I follow suit. I am new and unrefined and awake, and I can count the days of my existence like my still-wet and vital feathers that are too young yet to catch the wind. In this place God is a burgeoning emotion in my chest that speaks to the earth’s fertility, an abundance fed by the bodies of her fallen children. I am all of this and I know that in truth the old man thinks of nothing but the glowing atmosphere that fluctuates in both temperature and hostility, but is, at this moment, swaddling his broken form like the arms of a mother he will soon reclaim. The still branches of night are so laden with stars that they threaten to snap and come crashing down on the planet that sees them only as the ripened fruit of cosmic energy. Out of the night the emancipating wings of my consciousness flourish and are carried on stronger tides to see human expiration as the agent of enduring rebirth. Flight of body and soul bridge the gap between what was and what will be, closing the circle and guiding my solemn realization to fruition. The old man sleeps amidst a shower of home and sweet ****** bird-song. The wind that fails to wake his aged form smells like beginnings.



II. Son
The man is an ocean. He is reaching out to distant shores, spreading himself so thin at the edges that people can’t see where he ends and his country begins. The boy is a buoy, caught in a tide that never stops to wonder about the things it is moving. Buoys trust the ocean because they have to, they never had a choice. The two stand soul in soul at the crossways station of anticipation. The boy is silent. “He must know the way”, he thinks. “We’ve fought this war before. It was in a dream I had. I wrapped your arms around me like a cape and gravity couldn’t tell us what to do anymore. It was raining, I thought. Now I think those might just have been your tears coming back down on me. When gravity returned that was the first thing it took. It was so easy to cry when we could pretend the distance was only physical.” In this hub of passing voices and trans-Atlantic potential fear is a wide-eyed monster pretending to be a saint, wishing to be a child.   boy leaves Siddhartha’s white and glowing temple. The temple is surrounded with iron birds like transformers let loose from the pages of his comic book, rolled and folded like a hammer in his fist. His mind is an iron kettle whistling in the dark. His changing voice walks miles with words like his father’s back pocket bullets, shouting “I loved something once. Its name was a feeling. Its hands were the way the wind feels when you’re far from home. Its loneliness was a stone tower that I’m still trying to climb.” He sings an ode to a modern ocean, oily verses of pollution and corruption sinking morals like ships to be consumed and reborn to a better earth. He calls it a lullaby. I did not hear the last note played. His father forgot to sing it before his heels turned towards the old continent.

III. Spirit
Broken colors, reassembling, slow as the breeze that wanders and mocks the stationary world. I’m caught in a metamorphosis of mind, dancing a waltz of confession towards reality. Faces have faded, have bloomed from myth to speak in mortal voices, though their tongues be made of steel. Clouds of dust, caught in stray rays of northern sun, hang low over the aquatic murk, the impenetrable field of elemental strangers, and through them appear two figures. The first, his shoulders a bit too hunched and his gait a bit to staggered to be of this last generation, traces the perimeter of the pond with a studied poise; the latter figure comes into focus as he approaches the shore. I hear him calling, asking. I know he is asking even if the language he speaks is a foreign one. He pulls from under the surface a log, bent and creased like the aged arm that reaches out to assist. I am a ghost. I observe but rest immobile as if I am alive only in essence, existing for a moment in the corpse of the past. A fly on the wall whose chiseled stones tower over this piece of eternity. There is so much of forever piled within these walls, and in a desperate search for meaning I am left to drift away on waves that crash miles above this fortress of sand and early-summer expectance. The two continue, the boy taking two steps for every one of his grandfather’s. The possibility is never brought forth that they will reach me; I am not a part of the scene unfolding, I do not hold a piece in this game. Still… the wind coaxes the breath out of my silent lips, left powerless by the immensity of the incommunicable. I’ve forgotten the boy, forgotten his red jacket and his boots that slap the mud and his legs that propel his body up and down just to hear the sound the earth makes when he lands. He is beside me. I know this like I know the location of my own two feet, currently sunk into the shaded conglomeration of dirt and fallen leaves that makes up the bottom of the inky pond. I turn and for a moment wonder if he can see me, for I am but a ghost in most modern senses of the term. But he doesn’t know that- he has yet to see death or destitution. He knows nothing of ghosts, and therefore sees me clear as the blue eyes through which he looks in wonder. Those eyes! How could I forget their inquisitive stare, whose innocent gaze stole from my image all that it could not accept, all of the melancholy reflection and grief of which it knew not. Long and long he stayed unblinking, tugging on loose threads of my being, ever unaware of their significance. Somewhere by the path-side, under trees that bow and sway his grandfather calls- his voice is heavy with a familiar tone that I am unable to identify, like the call of a bird whose name you remember only when you are asked to recall it. Old and young part, hands intertwined in their forever-dance of humanity, playing games with age and expiration, laughing at the distance as if it were only there to make the known road less hospitable. The world is still. I am a spirit, no longer a ghost, rid of darkness, at least for the time it takes to refill my lungs with the gold-spun fabric of the universe, all bluebells and stardust at this moment and forever, and exhale away.

A growing sickness

Flowing through my veins

Burning away inside, eating me away

As the darkness takes over from within.

Lapses in sanity, I find myself lying

In cold sweat, falling through the chasm

And I know its only a matter of time

Before the demon inside has arisen.



A manic bloodlust takes over my being

I ache for the violence to be set free.

In their dead eyes, I see reflections of mine

A murderous gleam shining within

As my face stretches into a smile that isn’t mine.

Every fibre of my being, repulsed by myself

Petrified by the beast I have become

I cry out in pain and anguish

As I feel Him taking over again.



Under the light of the gibbous moon

I revel in my madness, as her

Screams goad me on and take me

To the precipice. I stand grinning at

Her broken,****** form in the earth

As she whimpers a pathetic plea for mercy.



No one knows of my disease; He only

Claims my body for himself in the dark

Leaving me behind to feel the horror and disgust

In the cold, grey sunlight.

Every night I struggle inside

I fight against my inner devil, pleading

For reason and humanity to return

To the twisted ******* I have become.

He stretches my face into a wide smirk

Reminding me of that exquisite, repulsive

Scent of flowing gore; He coaxes me,

He cajoles, He beckons me to join Him

As my will weakens and my body surrenders.



And so ends my tale, I have lost myself

To the contorted insanity I bred inside.

Horrified, repulsed, revolted with my being

My death only entices me now

Promising relief from my unholy illness.

But I know that small comfort is lost on me

Eventually, He’ll possess me entirely

And in the remorse of this truth I lie

And I feel Him return inside, eagerly awaiting my demise

No more can I hold out against Him.

No more can I wear the mask of Jekyll.